The Gabon international squandered a late penalty to win the north London derby against Tottenham Hotspur this month, but he made amends by converting his spotkick in the 2-0 win over Manchester United in the game after.

Still, Nicholas has not been entirely convinced with the approach from the former Dortmund star and believes the marksman brings a sense of uncertainty when on penalty duty.

He told Sky Sports: "You can hit a sweet penalty and the keeper gets a hand to it and it crawls over the line, you don’t care. A perfect penalty is that it goes over the line and it’s a goal. That’s all you care about. But, as an Arsenal fan, I don’t want him taking the next one."

Arsenal are currently occupying the fourth position in the standings and they are ahead of Manchester United and Chelsea by a two and three-point margin respectively.

Compared to them, they have no top-six games for the remainder of the campaign and this should see them favourites to make the Champions League next term, provided they manage to improve on their away form.